Running tennis thread for 2023

Men's quarters a little more on track

12 vs 1
8 vs 3
unranked vs 10
9 vs 2

 

Has Ons missed her chance? 0-3 in GS finals the last two years and was a mess of unforced errors in getting waxed by Zheng last night. She's on the verge of turning 30. Not easy to find many first-time slam winners at 30. Last I can find is Flavia Pennetta, who was 33 when she won the U.S. Open for her only GS title in 2015. Sure, Serena won several after turning 30, but she's Serena.

 

Gauff's up a set and a break. I'm not watching (got that ol' 9-to-5 job), but I just looked at the stats -- both players struggling with their serve (Gauff only getting 45 percent of first serves in, Ostapenko just 41), and both have 12 winners. The difference? Ostapenko's 30 unforced errors to Coco's 10.

 

Final unforced error tally: 36-14.

 

There’s a reason I dated tennis players



She’s playing in QF now.

 

20-year-old Ben Shelton moves on to the semifinals with a stunning four-set victory over last year’s surprise American semifinalist, Frances Tiafoe.

Several things surprised me about this match.

1. I had seen very little of Shelton in action before this, but having heard a lot about his 149-mph serves, I expected him to be firing missiles all night. Not so. He did rip one at 142 and a couple in the 130s, but his average first serve speed was just 116 — 2 mph slower than Tiafoe’s — and most of his 14 aces came from serves in the 105-117 range. Turns out his serve is effective not so much because of power and speed, but because of his placement and ability to change speeds. Where Shelton’s power really shows up in his forehand, with which he regularly blasted 100-mph-plus winners. While he ended up with more unforced errors that Tiafoe (34-33), he fired 50 winners to Tiafoe’s 33.

2. For a guy who supposedly struggles with his return of serve, Shelton did OK. He broke Tiafoe’s serve seven times — SEVEN! — and gave himself 15 break point opportunities. He also had five clean winners from the return.

3. The third set was absolutely looney, with six breaks of serve (three by each player) and an insane tiebreak in which Shelton had it won, then let it get away, then grabbed it back with a massive forehand winner into the back corner and hung on to win.

4. The most surprising thing to me was watching Tiafoe in the fourth set. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he was shell-shocked from losing the third set tiebreak. But after the first couple games, he completely checked out. I don’t think he consciously gave up, but he looked (and played) like he just wanted to be done, like would have rather been any place on the planet other than that court. Shelton didn’t need to hit it big or do anything spectacular. All he had to do was keep hitting the ball over the net and Tiafoe was going to give him the win. I didn’t expect to see that from him.

I’m pretty sure Djoker is going to destroy Shelton in the semis — I hope Ben can at least make him sweat a little — but this has been a great run and a great experience for him. Hopefully, he can keep improving, become more consistent (his match record this year is sub-.500) and become the top-10 or top-five player he has the ability to be. He’s talented, exciting and fun.

 

The word that came to mind was “ridiculous “; Shelton was just letting it rip for winners. Fun to watch. He’s going to get smoked though by Djoker unless he’s simply on fire.

 

Very interesting mixed doubles semifinal coming up today -- Jessica Pegula and Austin Krajicek (each ranked No. 3 in doubles) vs. Taylor Townsend (doubles No. 5) and Ben Shelton.

 

Good on Shelton for not dropping out of the doubles, which often happens when singles players go further in the draw than they anticipated.

 

His dad/coach wants him to play doubles to work on his net play. His partner in men's doubles is Chris Eubanks.

 

Yes. See three posts above yours.